|
 It would
be easy to think that reading, as a leisure activity, was finished. You
don't seem to need more than a Video/DVD and a Walkman for train
journeys. If you must read, the free daily Metro means you don't even
need to buy a newspaper. Written language is simpler, from University
course work to office reports. We’re told to use short sentences, words
of no more than three syllables, active not passive verbs. Then from
nowhere comes Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Not a hit with critics,
but the reading public loves it. Why, when you need a dictionary by your
side to make sense of it? Because reading can stretch us and, like sport
or music or art or writing, help us discover ourselves. We engage with
the printed word at our own pace, not in the allotted 120 minutes of a
feature film.
Someone,
not yet 50, told me that he was reconciled to “not going anywhere” in
his job; that he had learned to live with himself and looked forward to
retirement. In some ways I envied him. He had found contentment, whereas
many of us fail to recognise it when it was there. But without reading,
I would still struggle on my own and not know myself to anything like
the same extent.
Most of
us find what we like by chance. In the Daily Mirror Quizword, I
came across Hobbes and the importance of staying in the race; I knew
then I wanted to stay in it and also became interested in reading a bit
about philosophy.
I was
given a Karl Popper paperback and found his reassuring gem that people
do not get on through merit, they simply happen to be in the right
place, at the right time, with a face that fits. We can see the reverse
in education and elsewhere. At my primary school, many were convent kids
from a nearby “orphanage”. Most of them seemed to have difficulty with
lessons. As a result, they never finished set work and were unable to
move on to more interesting classroom activities.
One term,
a huge metal bin of modelling clay arrived. Those who finished their
mental arithmetic, problems and spellings etc were allowed to use
this until the end of each lesson. For a couple of weeks, I struggled to
make a pitcher. I gave up and clay lost its appeal for most of us, as it
became harder and a rather nasty brown colour at the edges. At this
point, it was decided to give the slower learners a go, before the clay
was dumped. Niger, one of the convent kids, set to work with a will.
With lashings of water and a gouging thumb he coaxed and twisted a spout
shape that was smooth and functional, onto a robust little gravy jug
made from that old, hard clay that the rest of us had discarded. The
finished result was superb and perfectly proportioned. Thicker than
anything I’d attempted, it was better conceived and executed than any of
our efforts. What nonsense to think that only bright kids (those with
“merit”) should be able to use the clay. Niger had innate skills that
others not only didn't have, but were also unable to acquire. For once,
he had narrowly missed being in the wrong place at the wrong time with a
face that didn't fit.
Again by
chance, I encountered the superfluous man of Russian literature. He can
be helpful to those of us who feel out of our element. It's possible to
see the superfluous spirit resulting in the triumph of individuals over
adversity, in dissidents like Shcheransky and Solzhenitsyn. The same
spirit produced individuals from Renaissance men like Leonardo to the
inventor Cody or the magician Houdini.
Saltykov-Shchedrin
writes about a very wise minnow who, realising the dangers of being
eaten by the pike, makes himself a hole in the river bank and stays
there in safety. He comes out only at night and eats only at noon, after
the other fish have eaten. He never marries and lives to be more than a
hundred years old. As he is dying, through natural causes, he realises
that, through fear, he has achieved nothing. Moreover, if every fish
were to live like him, life in the river would disappear.
In one of
England's stately piles there is a dialogue scratched on a window,
allegedly, by Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth:
He:
Fain would I climb, lest I should fall
She:
If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all
We are
exhorted to “seize the day”. “Man's reach should exceed his grasp” said
Browning and it seems important never say “no” to anything; to look for
and grasp opportunities when they arise. Before these post-modernist
times, J S Mill said that we are at liberty to do what we wish, as long
as we don’t harm others. But to make the world go round, this can't be
enough — we need actually to do good.
Happy
reading and happy doing.
[ John Scott Cree is a musician and
writer; his Web site may be found
here ]
|
